A Man, His Dogs, And A 700-Mile Roadtrip

The movers arrive tomorrow, which marks the beginning of my drive to Chicago. A mere 700-mile stanza between two chapters of our lives. So with the puppies in the back of the car, I will head out early in the morning, and hope to arrive at our new place by early evening. HASWOE will fly out Tuesday morning, arriving around noon, and the movers should arrive early afternoon.

I am considering the idea of doing some live blogging during the roadtrip, so watch this space. Hopefully I won’t get too bored with my own company for 12-hours, because I know the dogs aren’t going to be in the mood for any intellectual conversation.

Look out Chicago, here we come . . .

Season Tickets And Schedules

Yesterday A’Hottie, The Artful Blogger, Scuba Steve, and I became season ticket holders of the Chicago Blackhawks.  This is very exciting because a) it means we get to watch lots of hockey ; b) we get to see what promises to be a very exciting young Blackhawks team play ; and c) we probably get to cause a lot of trouble.  Trouble in a fun way of course, but still trouble.  Being a die-hard Penguins fan, it will be a little strange to see another team play so much, but I’ve always had a soft-spot for the Blackhawks, and I’m very happy to have them as my second team - my ‘Western Conference team’, if you will.

And today, the schedule for the upcoming NHL season was announced.  Highlights for the Penguins season include the opening 2 games against the Ottawa Senators in Stockholm on October 4th and 5th, the season home opener against the Devils on October 11th, a home and away series against the Red Wings, in Detroit on November 11th, and in Pittsburgh on February 8th.  And then there’s the big one, as the Pens visit the Blackhawks on Feb 27th.  Eeeeek!!!  The full Penguins schedule can be found here.

Highlights for the Blackhawks include their home opener against the Nashville Predators on October 13th, six games against the Red Wings, including the Winter Classic outdoor game at Wrigley Field on Jan 1st and their season closer on April 12th, and of course the previously mentioned Penguins game.  Twenty-five of the Blackhawks 41 home games this season will be played on the weekend, 14 of which will be on a Sunday.  The full Blackhawks schedule can be found here.

Training camps open in early September, and the first pre-season games start September 20th for the Pens and September 23rd for the Blackhawks.  Which is a mere 67 days away.  Yaaaay hockey!

Happy Birthday To The Best. Dog. Ever. (In The >25lbs Category)

Many Puppy Returns to the author of the blog, Murphy’s Law - well, it’s obviously not written by A’Hottie, so it must be the puppy.  Looking forward to a belated puppy party after the bar exam.

Five Days And Counting

We will be moving to Chicago Monday/Tuesday next week.  I will drive up with the pups on Monday, HASWOE will fly up Tuesday.  Moving company will deliver our stuff on Tuesday.  Deliver our stuff to an apartment we signed a lease for on Monday.  Well, when I say “we”, HASWOE didn’t actually see the place.  I stayed an extra night to look at one last place, HASWOE flew home, and I decided it was ‘the one’.  This has come with a lot of pressure - like I now can’t remember anything about it.  I’m doubting myself every minute.  Did it have a closet?  A bathroom?  A roof?  Ugh.  Now it’s time to hope and pray that I didn’t screw up.  Wish me luck!

But YAAAAAAY moving!

Dr. Eddielove Or: How I Learned To Start Worrying And Hate Technology

“Hate” is a very strong word, and one that I’m really not feeling towards technology, it’s just that over the last 10 days or so, technology turned its back on me and did a runner.  The shopping list of technological disasters:

• My Beautiful Laundrette: The tumble dryer expired and went to meet its maker.  Apparently some of the detergent that was sitting on top of it made its way to the circuit board and blew it up.  This is really at no cost to me, it belongs to the landlord, but it has turned our beautiful apartment into something resembling a Chinese Laundromat.  Cost to repair, somewhere around $400.
• Fahrenheit 451: The meat thermometer apparently doesn’t like being left out in a rainstorm.  Who’d have thunk it?  It is now deaded.  Cost to replace, $30.
• The Vanishing: My back-up hard-drive, which is only “back-up” by name since my company decided that I could no longer keep all of my media on my laptop, vanished last week.  A total of about 20 hours of searching and it remained lost.  Concerns that it may have been lost during the Clean-Up before my birthday party, or, perish the thought, swiped during aforementioned party.  All of my music, photos, movies . . . GONE!  I did well not to freak out.  After returning from our Chicago trip, I went to get something out of the computer desk drawer, and there, in full sight to the world, was the hard-drive.  The same drawer that I had looked in at least 10 times.  I have no explanation, just relief.  Potential cost to replace - $Thousands.  Actual cost - $0
• The Grapes Of Wrath: As many of you know, I am ‘mildly’ addicted to my Blackberry, or ‘Crackberry’ as it is affectionately called by the masses who know its powers.  First night in Chicago this weekend, and we are sitting out on a rooftop deck downtown, having a few drinks, and talking nonsense.  By the end of the night, it was time to clean up, and the wind was also picking up.  Then it all happened so fast - a gust of wind blew a plastic cup all the way across the table, perfectly upright.  Until it reached my phone, when it came to a halt, but the momentum caused it to fall, entering its contents of red wine directly onto my Blackberry.  Emergency resuscitation proved to be futile, as BB rapidly slipped into a comatose state.  Where it still lies today - there are occasional flickers of life, but I’ve faced the fact that it will never quite be the same again.  I attempted radical emergency surgery yesterday, and it came back to life.  But only briefly - 5 minutes or so.  But enough time for me to say my final farewells.  And I am still without a replacement because my company is So. Efficient.  In the meantime, I have kidnapped HASWOE’s BB.  She receives a LOT of emails!
• The Sound Of Music:  July 11th brought us the new iPod Touch software, and there were many problems early on downloading it.  So I waited.  Then today, I thought I’d give it a shot.  Things went smoothly, until, mid-upgrade, iTunes told me it was having a nervous breakdown and needed to be restarted.  This upset the iTouch.  I needed to restart that too.  Then when things came back online, and it had deleted all of my songs, it attempted to upload them again from my newly found hard-drive.  Things went well until a little Windows task-bar error popped up to tell me that it had deleted files from my F:Drive.  A look in My Documents told me that everything on my F: drive had been deleted.  I was close to tears.  After finding my hard-drive, I now lose all of my data?  I pulled out the USB cable in horror, then wondered what would happen if I plugged it back in.  They’d magically return, right?  Um. Actually, yes - they did.  I have no explanation, but my iTouch is now a happy 2.0 camper, and life is good again.  Cost to me: $10 for the upgrade.

So, many calamities, but also turnarounds.  And I got my TV back, and found the power cable.  So, yeah, I still love you, Technology - just don’t be so mean to me in future . . .

. . . And Now She’s Back

Twenty days ago, they took away my beautiful LCD TV to go to the LCD Hospital, and I know you were concerned.  Thanks to those of you who sent me ‘Hang In There’ greetings cards.  Well, she was released from hospital today, and so far she looks as good as the first day I ever met her.  There was a slight scare when I couldn’t remember the safe place that I left her power cable, but finally I figured out that I didn’t put it anywhere, and it was mushed up with all the other cables behind the TV cabinet.

We are celebrating with Movie/Pizza night on Thursday, probably going to watch the BluRay version of Kung Fu Hustle - it’s an amazing movie if you’ve not seen it before, like a mix between Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Looney Tunes.  Looking forward to watching it in 46″ hi-def blu-ray awesomeness.  And our take’n'bake pizza place is also divine.  Yaaaaay!

Happy Birthday Meeeeee!

Today has been, and will continue to be my birthday.  So far, work is doing its best to make it suck - oh how I love the incompetency of others.  But whatever, it’s my birthday, and the start of the 2nd week of Eddie’s Birthday Fortnight, so I think we’re going out tonight for further celebrations; dinner, drinks, fun and frivolity.  Well as much fun and frivolity as is possible on a Tuesday night in Baltimore . . .

Yaaaaay!

How Do I Stimulate My Economy?

(That’s what she said . . .)

The Economy Stimulus check arrived yesterday, so I need to figure out a good way to stimulate this economy-thingy.  Now, I think that I already do a pretty good job of stimulating the economy.  HASWOE also found a good way to stimulate it a couple of days ago - she slept.  Yep, good old fashioned Saturday night sleep managed to stimulate the economy quite nicely.  She then woke up on Sunday morning:

HASWOE: “I dreamt that you wanted to get a divorce, and you were being really mean to me”
Eddie: “Oh, I’m sorry honey, but you know that I don’t right?”
HASWOE:  “Of course I know that, it’s just that you were so mean to me”
Eddie:  “Well, I’m sorry for Dream-Eddie’s behaviour”
HASWOE:  “It’s OK”

Eddie goes to the baseball game, HASWOE goes shopping (assuming for Eddie’s Birthday Presents).  Text message conversation in the middle of the 4th:

HASWOE: “Can I buy a watch?  12mo interest free!!!!”
Eddie: “Of course you can”

Inserted in this section was a brief phonecall to discuss whether she should purchase insurance, and of course the “economic stimulus” of how much the watch costs.  Much stimulation! Then back to texting:

HASWOE: “Sorry.  You’re Not annoyed?  I should have told you how much it cost first.  Are you sure it’s OK to get the watch?”
Eddie: “Of course, you’ve earned it and deserve it”
HASWOE: “Although, you did try to divorce me, so I guess you owe me”
Eddie:  “Well, I’ll just claim it in the divorce settlement anyway, so no problem”
HASWOE:  “I also told you in my dreams that you wouldn’t get a penny”
Eddie:  “I have sunscreen in my eye :( “

And so that’s one way to stimulate the economy - the guilt following a dream divorce!  The watch is actually very gorgeous, and I’m sure she’ll be showing it off frequently.

But that was all before the Stimulus Check came through.  So I still need to stimulate the economy with it - therefore, I’m opening it up to the floor:  How should I stimulate the economy with my check? (more than I currently do on a daily basis through the power of Amazon, gas prices, and flights to Chicago) . . .

Penguins Sign Pesonen, the MexiFin

As expected, the Pittsburgh Penguins have signed Finnish left-winger, Janne Pesonen to a 1-yr contract.  His stats, photo and videos can be found on my previous post here.

Why the MexiFin?  Well, as AH pointed out, he’s obviously Finnish, and he has Peso in his name.  Simple, really when you think about it!  This should represent the last signing for the Pens, other than potentially coming to terms with a few Restricted Free Agents in the Baby Pens organization, so probably no more updates until we hit training camp.  On paper, the Pens certainly aren’t as good a team as they were a month ago, and the loss of Malone and Hossa will hit hard, but part of the magic of the likes of Crosby and Malkin is that they can raise the game of their wingers to levels not seen before.  I still think we’ll be a top-3 team in the East, and then it’s down to more grit and determination in the playoffs.

The league schedule is expected to be announced this week, as is the news that the outdoor Winter Classic will be played at Wrigley Field in Chicago, pitting the Blackhawks against the Red Wings.  Can’t wait to boo Hossa at that game.  Yeah, I’m sure he’ll hear me too.

Go Pens!  Arriba! Arriba!

Birthday Fortnight Approaches Halfway Point

6 days into Eddie’s Birthday Fortnight, and it’s been fun so far.  A little too much alcohol on Friday night, but it’s just about flushed out of my system right now.  But for today, Monday, I am pushing attention away from my Birthday Fortnight, and onto A’Hottie, who celebrates her birthday today.  So nip across to her place and wish her many happy returns.  She’ll be a little stressed with all things bar, but happy returns are always welcome.

Here’s a little early birthday gift, AH:

Mmmhmmm.  True story.